Ayn Rand VS Jesus: Love

{5:44} But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; {5:45} That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. {5:46} For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

source: The Christian Bible / Matthew 5:42-46 (PDF)

When it comes to love, the highest of emotions, you permit them to shriek at you accusingly that you are a moral delinquent if you’re incapable of feeling causeless love. When a man feels fear without reason, you call him to the attention of a psychiatrist; you are not so careful to protect the meaning, the nature and the dignity of love.

Love is the expression of one’s values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. Your morality demands that you divorce your love from values and hand it down to any vagrant, not as response to his worth, but as response to his need, not as reward, but as alms, not as a payment for virtues, but as a blank check on vices. Your morality tells you that the purpose of love is to set you free of the bonds of morality, that love is superior to moral judgment, that true love transcends, forgives and survives every manner of evil in its object, and the greater the love the greater the depravity it permits to the loved. To love a man for his virtues is paltry and human, it tells you; to love him for his flaws is divine. To love those who are worthy of it is self-interest; to love the unworthy is sacrifice. You owe your love to those who don’t deserve it, and the less they deserve it, the more love you owe them - the more loathsome the object, the nobler your love - the more unfastidious your love, the greater the virtue - and if you can bring your soul to the state of a dump heap that welcomes anything on equal terms, if you can cease to value moral values, you have achieved the state of moral perfection.

The degree of your ability to live was the degree to which you broke your moral code, yet you believe that those who preach it are friends of humanity, you damn yourself and dare not question their motives or their goals.

Ayn Rand

The Morality of Seduction: Is Redistribution of Wealth Moral?

Libertarians generally believe that the actions of government should follow the same ethical principles that private individuals follow. It is generally believed that theft is unethical. Assuming that theft is immoral, should redistribution of wealth through government be considered moral?!

The morality of seduction is the principle that moral human relationships are voluntary interactions (some libertarians do call themselves voluntaryists). The morality of rape is the idea that moral human relationships can be coercive by the use of force. Is redistribution of wealth consistent with the morality of seduction or the morality of rape?!

See this video of Economist Walter Williams making the moral case against the redistribution of wealth.

To Think or Not To Think

"I exist, therefore I'll think."

"Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking."

"Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch – or build a cyclotron – without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.
But to think is an act of choice. [...] In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival – so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to think or not to think’."

"Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform."

Ayn Rand

Economics and The Theory of Value (2)

Profit in the Subjective Theory of Value:
In the previous part, we discussed Karl Marx's theory of exploitation, and the thesis that profit is made though exploitation of one person of another. The subjective theory of value provides an alternative explanation of how profit is made in trade.

Let's review the story of Mr. Jesus Lover and Mr. Jesus Hater discussed earlier. In that story, Mr. Jesus Lover got a T-shirt as a gift with "I hate Jesus" written on it. Mr. Jesus Hater got a T-shirt as a gift with "I love Jesus" written on it. In this scenario, both of these individuals have negative valuation of the items they have.

Unlike our previous example, in this scenario, those individuals don't know each other; So, they are not going to engage in direct trade. Instead, let's suppose there is Mr. Trader. Mr. Trader meets Mr. Jesus Lover and offers him 6$ to get that shirt. Later, Mr. Trader meets Mr. Jesus Hater and offers him another 6$ to get that shirt from him.

Note that each of these trades are good bargains for these individuals, since for each of them, the shirt they have is worthless; But now each one of them has 6$ instead of a worthless shirt!!

Suppose now that Mr. Trader puts these shirts on sale. He offers both shirts for 10$. Let's assume that Mr. Jesus Lover values the first T-shirt for 12$, and Mr. Jesus Hater values the second T-shirt for 12$ also. Both of these individuals visit Mr. Trader's shop and buy their favorite shirts for 10$.

Let's examine what happened with this step-by-step table:



As we can see, Mr. Jesus Lover started out with a worthless shirt and 10$ in his pocket. He ended up with a shirt he subjectively values at 12$ and 6$ in his pocket. Giving him a total of 18$ in value. Mr. Jesus Lover has gained the equivalent of 8$ in this process!!

Mr. Jesus Hater started out with a worthless shirt and 10$ in his pocket. He ended with a shirt he subjectively values at 12$ and 6$ in his pocket. Mr. Jesus Hater gained the equivalent of 8$ in this process.

Mr. Trader started out with 12$ in his pocket, and ended up with 20$ in his pocket. Mr. Trader has made a profit of 8$ as well...

As a total for all people involved, we started with the equivalent of 32$ in value, and ended up with the equivalent of 56$ in value. The net gain for all people involved is the equivalent of 24$... Also, note that each step in this process increases the amount of value in the system, because each step is itself a positive-sum game as the people involved wouldn't trade unless each one of them subjectively views the trade as profitable.

By understanding this scenario, we learn three very important lessons:
1- In trade, everyone involved is a winner.
2- Trade CREATES new value.
3- In trade, profit is made in the process of different subjective valuation of the same commodities.

In our scenario, Mr. Trader profited from the process of transferring the ownership title of the two shirts, from the individuals who least wanted those items, to the hands of those who most wanted those items.

In technical economic terminology, profit is made by efficient allocation and reallocation of resources. In our example, the trader served to reallocate the existing resources (the shirts), from it's inefficient initial allocation (as worthless shirts) to their more efficient allocation (valued shirts).

Labor is a resource just like any other resource in the market. And business owners maximize their profit by allocating labor to it's most efficient use. This might not be easily understood as the trading example, and I will elaborate on this in future posts.

Trade brings profit by increasing the efficiency of allocating resources. In the T-shirts example, profit was made by goods simply exchanging hands. But, this is not the only way trade is beneficial. Trade also improves efficiency by conserving resources. See video below as another example of how trade increases efficiency of allocating resources in a more concrete sense.




In this series:
Economics and The Theory of Value (1)
Economics and The Theory of Value (2)
Next: Economics and The Theory of Value (3)

Re-Evaluating Discrimination

Economist Walter Williams gives great lecture about the common myths and misunderstandings about discrimination.

Watch the full lecture, titled "How Much Can Discrimination Explain?".

Economic Freedom and Personal Freedom

In politics, views are usually divided into right-wing and left-wing politics. However, this 1-dimentional division does overlook some critical differences in political views. One important distinction is economic freedom and personal freedom.

The general trend is that the right-wingers (conservatives) usually support economic freedom, but suppress personal freedom. On the other hand, left-wingers (social liberals) usually support personal freedom, but suppress economic freedom. However, this left-right dichotomy makes people unaware of the existence of those distinctions.

Instead of a 1-dimentional political spectrum, a 2-dimentional political spectrum is usually used. Some people have devised 3-dimentional political spectrum, but that is beyond this post. What this political spectrum shows is the distinction of the classical liberals (usually called "libertarians" to avoid confusion with the more widespread social liberals). Classical liberals support BOTH economic freedom and personal freedom; That is because classical liberalism is based on the idea of least government control in people's lives.

Take this short test to see where you fall on the political spectrum.

On this diagram, notice the personal freedom score and the economic freedom score. In this diagram, going from right-to-left measures how much your views oppose tradition. Right being most traditional, and Left being most opposed to tradition. On the other hand, going from bottom-to-top measures how much you believe that government should control people's lives. The bottom means you believe government should take complete control in people's lives, and top means you believe government should not control people's lives.

To learn more, check those two YouTube videos:
Economic Vs. Civil Liberties
Who favors more freedom, liberals or conservatives?

Economics and The Theory of Value (1)

An important concept in the theory of economics is the theory of value. Unfortunately, numerous economical theories have misguided theories of value. The prevalent theory of value in the 19th century is called "The labor theory of value" and most economists of that time used that theory of value.

Karl Marx in his formulation of the economic system of communism had made five fatal flaws in making in his theories. Those flaws are:
1- Using the labor theory of value.
2- Lack of understanding of information propagation and signaling in the market.
3- Lack of understanding of the role of discovery, learning, and creativity in the market.
4- Misinterpreting the direction of history (historical materialism).
5- Lack of understanding of the laws of causality (the relationship between cause and effect).

In this post, I will address the first topic, namely the theory of value. Hopefully, in future posts I will address the rest of the flaws in Karl Marx's theory of economics. Please note that most of the flaws in Karl Marx's theory were result of poor understanding of economics in the 19th century, so this post is not meant to question the intelligence of Karl Marx, but rather review his theory in the light of advances in economic theory in the 20th and the 21st century.


The Labor Theory of Value:
The labor theory of value states that the value of a commodity is proportional to the amount of labor that went into the production of that commodity. This means that any two commodities that had the same amount of labor invested in them should be equally priced, and sold for the same price. Similarly, if twice the amount of labor went into one commodity, then it's price should be double.

The labor theory of value is part of a sub-class of theories of value, called objective theories of value. Objective theories of value are those theories that state that commodities should have a specific value (and consequently specific price). Labor is one of the metrics that objective theories of value use.


The Subjective Theory of Value:
The subjective theory of value state that the value of a commodity is subjectively determined by both producers and consumers.

To illustrate the flaws of the labor theory of value, let's consider this example:

Let's assume for the sake of argument, that the same amount of labor went into the production of those two T-shirts. Do both T-shirts have the same value?! Certainly not! For a person who loves Jesus, the second T-shirt has negative value. That is to say, that person would not take the second T-shirt even if it was offered for free! Different people would have different valuations for the same commodity. This means that objective theories of value are all necessarily false including -among others- the labor theory of value.


Trade is a Positive-Sum Game:
A positive-sum game is the type of game where the sum of values of all players after the process is larger than the sum of values of all players before the process.

Let's consider an example of a zero-sum game to illustrate the meaning of the term. Let's say that two friends make a bet on the outcome of a football match, such that the loser of the bet would pay the winner of the bet 10$. This is a zero-sum game because in order for one person to gain 10$, the other person has to lose 10$. So, the winner had 10$ before, and 20$ after. The loser had 10$ before, and 0$ after. The sum of money before was 10$+10$ = 20$, and after is 20$+0$ = 20$.

Since, the difference in the amount before and after is zero, then it is a zero-sum game. In other words, in a zero-sum game, in order for one player to gain a certain amount of value, the other player must lose an equal amount of value.

Sexual intercourse is a good example of a positive-sum game. Both parties involved in a sexual interaction gain satisfaction. In other words, it is a win-win situation, where all players gain value.

Is trade a zero-sum game? Positive-sum game? Or negative-sum game?

If we assume that commodities have a fixed objective value, then trade is a zero-sum game. If PersonX owned ItemX and PersonY owned ItemY, and those items had fixed objective values, then a trade will not change the sum of values in the system.

However, when we assume the subjective theory of value, we see how trade is a positive-sum game. To illustrate that, let's go back to our T-shirts example. Say, Mr. Jesus Lover got the "I hate Jesus" T-shirt as a gift. And his friend, Mr. Jesus Hater got the "I love Jesus" T-shirt as a gift. Both of these individuals have negative valuation of the items they received. On the other hand, they both have positive valuation of the item their friend has received.

Let's say, Mr. Jesus Lover proposes a trade to Mr. Jesus Hater. Let's consider the conditions on which this trade will be successful.
1- Mr. Jesus Lover values the shirt his friend has more than he values the shirt he already has; Otherwise, he wouldn't have proposed the trade in the first place.
2- Mr. Jesus Hater values the shirt his friend offered more than he values the shirt he already has. If he did not value it more, he would refuse to make the trade.

From (1) and (2), we can easily see that voluntary trade is necessarily a positive-sum game.


Karl Marx's Theory of Exploitation:
I am not going to explore Marx's theory of exploitation in full, it is a mathematically intensive theory. But what is important to realize, is that the whole theory is based on the labor theory of value, and that trade is a zero-sum game.

According to the theory of exploitation, every trade is either neutral or exploitative. So, if two individuals enter into a trade, they are either going to trade items of equal value, or trade items of different values. In the case two people trade of items of different values, the person who got the more valuable item is an "exploiter", and the person who got the less valuable item is "exploited".

Then Marx focused on the trade between a business owner (the capitalist) and the employee (proletariat). And then went on to prove that the wages employees get is necessarily exploitative. In other words, employees are always exploited.

The proof is relatively simple. The price at which a product that is sold on the market equals the amount of labor that went into making the product. So, the only way the business owner can make a profit is to pay his employees less than the true value of their labor. So, the only way a business owner can make any profit whatsoever, is by exploiting his employees. And the more profit a business owner makes, the more exploitative his wages are.

To give a numerical example, let's say a cars factory owner bought the raw materials (steel and other raw materials) for 200$. This 200$ is the value of labor required to mine those raw materials. He then hires one worker to assemble a car in his factory. Later, the factory owner sells the car for, say, 1200$. According to the labor theory of value, the price of the car (1200$) is the value of the total labor that went into the production of the car. The value that the worker at the factory added is 1000$ (since 200$ was the price of the raw materials). So, if the factory owner gives his worker 800$ as a salary, and keeps 200$ as profit, then the factory owner has exploited his worker by not compensating him for 20% of his labor (200$ of the 1000$).

It can be easily seen, how in the labor theory of value, any profit a business owner makes is necessarily an act of exploiting his workers. Fortunately, it is obvious that the labor theory of value is not a valid assumption to build a theory.

It is also important to note that, Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism is derived from his theory of exploitation, and so, that theory as well needs to be put in question.


In this series:
Economics and The Theory of Value (1)
Economics and The Theory of Value (2)
Next: Economics and The Theory of Value (3)

How Good Is Greed?!

Is greed a virtue or a vice?! Economist Walter Williams believes that greed is the noblest of human motivations... I happen to agree, do you?!

See this video of Walter Williams explaining the virtues of greed.

The Importance of Freedom of Speech

Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man’s survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind.

A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or “welfare”. Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example and symbol of this attitude is Galileo.)

It is from the work and the inviolate integrity of such minds—from the intransigent innovators—that all of mankind’s knowledge and achievements have come. It is to such minds that mankind owes its survival.

Ayn Rand

Libertarianism: Short Essay

An interesting article by someone who used to be a conservative, then decided to become a liberal, and finally decided that libertarianism is the way to go...

Title: Why I Am A Libertarian: A Brief Treatise About My Politics

Both conservatives and liberals are wrong!

For most of the earlier years of my life, I was a conservative. Like most conservatives I was pro-business, pro-tax cuts, pro-life. I believed that government could tell people what they could and could not put into their bodies, that it should be involved in marriage, and that we needed to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I got older, I let altruism and my feelings make me more liberal. I began to think that capitalism was flawed, and that the government needed to do more for people.

I continued down this psychotic path until the election of President Obama. That is when I started to “wake up”. I began to realize that conservatives and liberals are not that different. Both are Statist. Both want to control people—liberals want to control people economically, conservatives want to control people morally, and both are pro-war.

Liberals were never really anti-war, they were anti-Bush. Observe that the war movement among the liberals virtually disappeared overnight after Obama became president. Even though he is now waging three immoral wars, liberals are silent. He has continued the foreign policy of the Bush administration, but you will not likely find liberals rallying or protesting in the streets like they were while Bush was in office.

This leads me to my next point: both conservatism and liberalism are inconsistent and contain within their own philosophies, many contradictions. Upon further examination, the liberals are actually more consistent than the conservatives. For example, conservatives claim to be defenders of capitalism while acting as apologizers. They have a disdain for the welfare state but love corporate welfare. Some of them are advocates of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. How can any moral man be a defender capitalism, i.e., property rights, and be in favor of socialism (redistribution of wealth), i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid? He cannot. To be in favor of both is a complete and utter contradiction. But such is conservativism.

Conservatives say that capitalism is good, but some parts of it are bad(!). They say that men should be free to trade while at the same time admitting that government needs to impose some regulations and interfere in the market place. Observe the anti-trust laws. Many conservatives advocated them and continue to advocate them to this day in the name of “preserving competition”.

Conservatives, like liberals, are altruistic, though not as much as the liberals. Altruism is incompatible with capitalism. One cannot be a capitalist and an altruist at the same time.

Conservatives are worse than the liberals. Why? They lack intellectual leadership and have failed to defend capitalism by moral default. It is their inconsistency and miserable failures that aid the liberals in their attacks against capitalism, thereby becoming accessories to its destruction.

If I am neither a conservative nor a liberal, then what am I? If I am to be identified by a political label, then I would have to be labeled a libertarian. What is a libertarian? A libertarian is anyone who believes in and advocates individual liberty. They are individualists that are for limited government. They are most often described as socially liberal and fiscally (economically) conservative. They don’t want to control people neither morally nor economically (unlike liberals and conservatives) and believe that men should be free to pursue their own self-interests as long as they do not violate the rights of others.

Many of the Founding Fathers were libertarians, or classical liberals (libertarianism and classical liberalism are the same thing). They created a politico-economic system of maximal liberty and minimal government.

Modern liberals have perverted the term liberal. It no longer means advocating individual freedom. The only way that they are really “liberal” is with other people’s money. Conservatives used to be very classically liberal but the modern conservatives have completely changed that. They are willing to protect only those freedoms that they are comfortable with.

Libertarians do not necessarily believe that there is nothing wrong with certain people like drug abusers or prostitutes. They simply believe that those people should be free to be immoral and that government should leave them alone as long as they do not violate the rights of others.

Before finally deciding to become a libertarian, which was a process that took months, I had to re-examine my core values and beliefs. The very most core belief that I examined was that of man’s agency. Man owns his life and has a right to it. No one else owns his life or may control it. Therefore, man must be free to choose. Freedom means absence of force. No other man may violate his rights, nor may he violate the rights of others through force.

Since each individual man owns his own life, he owns the products of his life: his property! No man may forcibly confiscate the property of others nor may any other man forcibly confiscate his. It is only by voluntary trade that men may obtain resources from each other. This means that taxation is theft. The income tax is a complete and utter violation of individual rights.

Only individuals have rights. No group, or collective, has rights, as collectives do not exist. A collective is only a number of individuals. It is only an abstraction, not a concrete, and can, therefore, not be embodied as a living entity that has rights. Only an individual man can have rights, because he exists. Rights do not come from government, as a government is merely another abstraction composed of individual men who may not violate the rights of others. After all, how can a disembodied abstraction grant rights if it doesn’t even exist at all but is merely a number of individuals? Therefore, rights are merely an effect of existence. We have them because we exist. No majority can vote away the rights of any minority and the individual is the smallest minority of all.

It is for this reason that the founders created a Constitution and a republic (not a democracy) that protects our natural, inalienable rights from the arbitrary whims of government. All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator (whether that Creator is God, or nature, or some other force) with certain inalienable rights: Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The right to Life, the right to Property, and the right to the pursuit of Happiness are redundancies. They are all one in the same. You do not have a right to your life if you do not have a right to what your life produces. You do not have the right to your life if you are not free to pursue your happiness through trade and living how you see fit. Any limitation on anyone of these is a limitation on all—on life, on freedom.

Therefore, in order to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. That means that the only proper role and function of government is to protect the rights of its citizens, or, in other words, to protect them from force. That means that the government must have a police force to protect citizens from criminals that are among them. It must also have a strong military to protect its citizens from foreign attack and invasion. It must also supply a court system in order to enforce contracts among traders and settle their disputes if any should arise, all in order to protect them from force and fraud. That is all government may do. Nothing else! Anything beyond that is not morally justified.

Conservatives do not believe this and neither do liberals. Neither is based upon reason or in reality. That is why I reject both. My political philosophy is based on reason. Not on irrationality, not on dogma, not on my feelings, and not my subjective beliefs. This is why I am a libertarian.

source: Why I Am A Libertarian: A Brief Treatise About My Politics

Socialism: Behind The Curtains

This post is a prelude to posts that critique socialism/communism.

The question is: If it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that socialism would lead to massive poverty, would you still support socialism?! If making everyone equal in terms of financial wealth meant that the average wealth of people in a socialist society is below the average of wealth in a capitalist society, would that change your mind?! What if the average wealth in a socialist society will be below the poverty level by today's standards, would that concern you?!

Would you rather live in a society where everyone is equally "poor"?! Or a society where wealth is disproportionate, but where even the poorest individuals are relatively well-off?!

I would love to hear from anyone who supports socialism/communism their perspective on the subject. Is financial equality the be-all-end-all value?!

The Psychology and Politics of Self-Responsibility

Dr. Nathaniel Brandon is a well-known psychologist and gives a talk about self-esteem and self-responsibility, and how it affects the political arena of the current world.

Click here to see the video.

Do The Minimum Wage Laws Cause Poverty?

Government intervention in a free market causes lots of problems. Minimum wage laws are just one example of how the government limiting the freedom of individuals to create contracts hurts individuals.

To better understand how minimum wage laws hurts individuals and causes poverty, check the videos below:
Does the Minimum Wage Hurt Workers?
John Stossel - The State Against Blacks
How the Minimum Wage Creates Unemployment
The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws

Do We Need Government?!

While I don't have strong beliefs whether a government is absolutely necessary, or can be completely discarded, there are good reasons to believe that it might be possible that we don't need government in any form. The functions of the government might be subject to privatization, and this may lead to more efficient and flexible security implementations.

See those four videos that explain the possible mechanisms that government can be discarded. The first two videos are short straight to the point explanation. The third and fourth videos are complete lectures that provides additional insights how such a system can happen, and how this is already widely used in our current times.

1- Social Cooperation: Why Thieves Hate Free Markets
2- Law without Government: Conflict Resolution in a Free Society
3- Do We Need Government?
4- Anarchy and Efficient Law

The Disposable Male

Check out this video about the social double standards in regards to the treatment of men and women in society, and how men are also oppressed under "patriarchal" systems.



PS: If you find this video interesting, check out it's continuation here

Types of Rights: Positive and Negative Rights

In political philosophy, rights are broadly categorized as positive rights and negative rights. LGBT rights, women rights, and freedom of speech are examples of negative rights. Right to healthcare, right to welfare, right to education are examples of positive rights. If you are puzzled by the notion that LGBT rights, for example, are negative rights, then just bear in mind that positive and negative in this context are not judgements on whether those rights are good or not.

Positive rights are those rights that create duties on others. Negative rights are those rights that are satisfied by simply not taking action by others. For example, when we say that homosexuals have the right to engage in homosexual acts, this right does not create a duty on anyone to act; They are maintained by simply not taking action. In other words, by refraining from taking action to try and stop their sexual acts. On the other hand, a right to education does create duties on others. By claiming education rights, you claim that someone has to build a school, and teachers have to attend the school to provide education.

For this reason, positive rights are usually called entitlements. Saying that a person has a positive right to education, means that the person is entitled to education. On the other hand, negative rights are usually called rights of non-interference. Saying that a homosexual has the negative right to practice homosexual acts, means that the homosexual has a right that others don't interfere and prevent him or her from practicing their preferred sexual acts.

But let's do a thought experiment and assert that LGBT rights are positive rights. In other words, that homosexuals are entitled to engage in homosexual acts. So, let's say that a gay person is walking down the street picks a random stranger and says: "Let's go and have sex." The stranger replies: "But I don't want to." Then the gay person says: "But I have a positive right to homosexual sex." and forces that stranger to engage in homosexuality. Any reasonable person would object and say: "That's a misinterpretation of the concept of a right! Saying that homosexuals have positive rights is a right to rape people! That's nonsense...". This scenario raises a reasonable question: Are positive rights misinterpretations of the concept of a right?! Or are there positive rights that are legitimate?! It is obvious that claiming that homosexuals have positive rights to homosexual acts is illegitimate, but is it the case that all positive rights are really illegitimate?!

Some people claim that a right to education is a legitimate positive right. Or that right to healthcare is a legitimate positive right. But are they really?!

Consider the right to healthcare. If someone goes into a clinic and demands that they get treated for some illness without paying anything to the doctors or nurses who are taking care of him; Is that patient's actions legitimate?! To understand the problem with the proposition that this is a legitimate action, let's see how such a scenario would play out. Suppose the doctor refuses to give treatment for the patient, the patient might use force to get treatment. This would be a form of theft in practice. What about the case that the patient makes the case that the doctor has the duty of providing healthcare. Such duty can only be interpreted as slavery. Claiming that the doctor has an obligation to provide medical care to patients without being compensated, is to say that the doctor is a slave to his or her patients. Moreover, if we establish that patients have the right to medical care without providing compensation to doctors, what would happen to the medical profession?! Would any person desire to become a doctor and go through the process of medical education just so that in the end he would be regarded as a slave?! Under such conditions, no person in his right mind would decide to become a doctor!

In practice, this is not how the right to healthcare is implemented. So, let's try to propose a second scenario that comes closer to practice. Say, a group of people decided that a right to healthcare is desirable. And as such, they created an institution where people pay 10$ each month to this institution, and the people who participate in this institution would receive free medical care from doctors. But doctors don't do it as slaves, they do it with the understanding that they are going to be compensated by the institution that those people participated in. That is all good. Such an institution would be analogous to health insurance companies that we are all familiar with. The problem arises if and when such an institution claims that people should have "free" healthcare, and hence being a member of the institution is not optional, it is mandatory. What if a person decides that they do not want to pay 10$ monthly?! If they are forced to pay the 10$, then this is no longer voluntary participation in an institution, but rather outright theft. Taking 10$ from a person against his will is theft in the most common sense of the word.

Imagine that you go into a shop, and the shopkeeper decided that all customers must buy a bar of chocolate. And you enter that shop, and the shopkeeper puts a gun in your head and demands that you pay for a chocolate bar, and then gives you the chocolate bar. While this is not theft as we are used to it, but the fact that the purchase was forced and not voluntary implies a form of theft, even if you were getting what you paid for.

And this brings us to what actually happens in practice when claiming that people have a right to healthcare. Such a system is implemented through one or both of the following methods: 1- Making health insurance mandatory to all citizens by law. Or 2- Raising taxes to create public sector clinics and paying those doctors. It does not take a genius to figure out that both solutions are forms of theft. Simply claiming that it is required by law to have health insurance, does not negate the fact that forcing someone to pay for health insurance is a form of theft, be it forced by the insurance company itself or by the government. And raising taxes to achieve the same result is also forcing people to pay for healthcare, but with simply creating the trick of changing labels from mandatory health insurance to tax money. It's the same process but under different pretenses.

So just as claiming that homosexuals have a positive right to homosexual acts is in practice (and also in principle) a right to rape others, saying that people with a medical condition have a right to healthcare is in practice (and in principle) a right to steal from others or enslave them.

The same logic applies to the right to welfare, education, and almost every other set of positive rights that are proposed. If someone is entitled to a positive right, then someone else has to provide that entitlement either voluntarily or by force. Therefore, we can see the obvious problem of positive rights; That they cannot be implemented without infringing on somebody else's rights!

PS: Check this video for more explanation about positive and negative rights

The Problem of Welfare State

It is well-understood that the welfare state and socialism are incompatible with Libertarian politics. While the philosophical reasons for this position need to be addressed, however, without such philosophical analysis it can still be easily seen why welfare and socialism are incompatible with liberty and the principles of a liberal society. To illustrate this in the most simple terms, check this YouTube video titled: Self-ownership or Socialism?

Share your thoughts.

Introduction To Libertarianism And Self-Ownership

In politics, the word "liberal" is a label used for various views that support personal liberties. However, not all liberals hold compatible views. The greatest contrast between liberals is their views on economical systems. Libertarians (also called "classical liberals") who support capitalism, and socialist liberals (also called "new liberals") who support socialism.

Almost all liberals agree on social views and advocate social freedom. However, socialism advocates economical statism (read more), while libertarians advocate economical freedom as well as social freedom.

See this YouTube video to get a brief introduction about libertarianism, and it's most important underlying principle of self-ownership.

Enemies of Freedom

"The greatest enemy of freedom is a happy slave."

Amen!

Satanic Views On Good And Evil

Satanism and Satan are usually related to evilness. However, this is a general misconception. Satanists do not advocate being evil, but reformed understanding of the connection between good and evil.

You can not even define evil without discussing what is good. Therefore, the two are inseparable. One can not understand darkness without experiencing light. One cannot appreciate day, without having night. Opposites compliment, define and complete one another. To destroy all evil in the world means there would be no good left to appreciate, therefore the Satanist does not worship or disrespect either quality! We value ourselves and nature instead and venerate opposition in balance!

The definition of good and evil is subject to change because it exists only as a perception. "Evil" is a label we assign according to our mood swings to those who are politically incorrect. The ascended masters of Eastern Philosophy become the fallen angels of Western Philosophy. One man's "demons" are another man's "saints." Theologians create gods and devils in man's image, then conflict between them to divide the heart and conquer the soul! They pit spirit against matter, then appoint themselves position of supreme arbiter, divine interpreter of right and wrong, good and evil.

"Good" are the things we like. "Evil" are the things we dislike. It often depends on who or what you are. As Diane Vera says, if you're a mouse, cats are evil, but to the pet owner, cats are heavenly. Therefore, evil is not an essence - it is a value judgment. From a Christian point of view, Satan is "evil" because he represents the savage instincts they are attempting to hide or suppress. Satanists are truth seekers who desire to peek behind such labels.

Of course, there are certain ethical wrongs, but they are set by a society or culture so that all can live harmoniously. Examples of these would be thieving, disrespectful behavior and killing or abusing an innocent.

A chief attribute of the trickster god is the role of Devil's Advocate. The Satanist illustrates "opposition in balance," wielding contradiction like a scalpel in the hand of a skilled surgeon. Our objective? Closure to this unnatural dichotomy, this madness you call "good and evil." Bringing flesh and spirit together. The establishment of a New World Order, free of guilt, self-loathing and shame, where every man and woman is the god of his or her own life. We look upon religion as the starter of wars and the breeder of hate and intolerance. We believe that people are intelligent enough to instill moral and ethical codes into a societal structure without a threat of an imaginary supernatural being wreaking havoc on an offender.

source: Satanism Central - Do You Worship Evil?

Although not originally a satanic symbol, the Yin Yang is a symbol adopted by satanic culture, because it does visualize that belief that is commonly held.

This symbol represents the state of everything as the circle. It shows an intricate balance between the lightness and darkness, good and evil, the yin and the yang. And in the light part there is a spot of darkness. And in the dark part there is a spot of light. This is how satanists view the world, as a balancing of the two forces that move the world. Some of it we might like, others we don't. But even those parts that we don't like are there out of necessity. And as evil and dark as they might seem, there is a silver-lining somewhere.